The Tribune

By DANA SMITH

Tribune Staff Reporter

dsmith@tribunemedia.net

IN an effort to raise $300,000 to begin renovations on a new school building which will educate a portion of the country’s more than 600 teenage mothers, PACE will host a fundraising ball tomorrow night.

Yesterday morning at Sandals Resorts, PACE president Sonia Brown unveiled architectural plans for the East Street building – acquired three years ago – and explained that the fundraiser is free.

However those who attend are asked to donate whatever they can.

“The building was advertised as a distressed properly on the Bahamas Development Bank’s list and we saw it, we put in a bid and we were able to successfully negotiate and get a mortgage and get it from the BDB,” she said.

“Since 2009 we’ve been able to successfully service the mortgage so some of our fund-raising goes towards just keeping up with the mortgage payments, but, of course, we were trying to raise additional funds so that we can get the renovation started.”

Ms Brown said architectural plans have already been finished and her company, Graphic Engineering, has already pledged to donate all the mechanical and electrical engineering. Another company, Engineering and Technical Services has pledged to donate all the structural engineering.

“The plans have been approved by the Ministry of Works so we’re really just ready to go,” she said. “We’re just trying to raise the money.”

Tomorrow’s event will take place at Sandal Resort’s Ballroom on West Bay Street and is open to the public.

“Everyone is invited. What we’re trying to do is make it a more casual take on a ball, so we want it to be an event where we do very little talking, we tell people a little bit about the foundation and our work but people spend most of the evening having a good time,” Ms Brown said.

“We understand a lot of people are under financial pressure so trying to sell these high priced tickets may not necessarily be the most practical thing, so we tell people, you set the price of your dinner (and) you make a donation. We’ve been doing this for a number of years – this is our first year at Sandals – but we found people have been extremely generous when we tell them to do that.”

Ms Brown said PACE has already raised approximately ten per cent of the $300,000 target.

PACE, which is an acronym for Providing Access to Continued Education, was founded in 1969 and currently enrols over 100 girls who cannot afford to attend government or private schools because of pregnancy.

“What we are trying to do is to ensure that the students get an education that is equal to a mainstream Ministry of Education school,” Ms Brown said.

“We believe that the students, even though they may be pregnant, they should not be disadvantaged. Our education act says that any student between five and 16 should be in school and so we believe that it is a benefit to the community that they get a proper education so that they are able to enter the work force and be able to take care of themselves and take care of their baby.”

PACE’s Principal Jackie Knowles estimated as many as 600 to 700 girls under the age of 19 give birth, every year.